


Vriska's Fate

by speye22e



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-04 13:20:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speye22e/pseuds/speye22e
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The game is won, but only living players can enter the new universe. Vriska is stuck in a dream bubble by herself. However, rather than controlling which memories to relive, Vriska finds herself reliving parts of her life she would rather forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You’d finally won.

Or rather your friends had won, but you were on their side, so that meant that you’d won too. You’d watched them walk through the door to their new universe, a universe that was free from the threat of Jack Noir and Lord English and all those other enemies who had plagued your game sessions. You had sacrificed everything to create this new universe and to make it safe, and now your job was done.

But that door was only open to the living. You were left behind with the ruins of a finished game session and the few angry ghosts who had survived Lord English. And you are alone. Because that’s what happens when you sacrifice your friendships for the greater good.

They were all soooooooo ungrateful! Couldn’t they see that everything you’d done had been totally necessary? Couldn’t they see that you had saved their dumb asses by sending those other ghosts to their dooms? _Everyone_ would have been destroyed if it weren’t for you! They’d forgiven Aradia and let her into the new universe, but most of them hadn’t even said good bye to you. Aradia had sat on the sidelines as paradox space shattered and souls burned to nothing, but it was your fate to be left in a dream bubble that no one wanted to share.

“Like I needed any of you anyways!!!!!!!! I’m going to relive my greatest victories and I don’t need any of you losers screwing it up!” You shout at the top of your lungs but there is no one nearby to hear.

Which memory first? You’ve done so many amaaaaaaaazing things in your thirteen years of life and three years of death, it’d be hard to pick just one moment. It’s lucky that you’re going be in the dream bubble forever. It would take forever to get through your awesomeness. Who did all the amazing things? You did. Aaaaaaaallllllll of them. You guess you should start with the battle against the black king.

The dream bubble doesn’t turn into the battlefield. Instead, it turns into a familiar cavernous room, and you are a small girl standing before an immense spider. “This is the wrong memory! I don’t want to be here, I want to be on the battlefield, killing Derse’s king! Do you hear me?” But of course, no one is listening and the dream doesn’t budge.

“Vriska!” shouts Spider Mom.

“Y-yes?” You can’t fight the way the memory forces the same old lines from your lips. You hate it.

“Stop stammering like some low blood and get over here you stupid child!”  
You resist the urge to walk forwards with all your might, but the recollection wins out.

“Vriska, you are getting older, and it is time for you to begin feeding me.”

“What if I can’t do it? It’s not like most trolls want to be fed to a giant spider.”

“Then I will eat you instead. I have no use for incompetency. Now go, and don’t even think of coming back without food.”

You hate the way your tiny body quivers as you leave. You were so WEAK back then. If you hadn’t found your ancestor’s journal the month before, you probably would have given up hope, run away, and died in a cave somewhere. But you were the descendent of Marquise Spinneret Mindfang and that was enough to make you walk into the city.

The trip was long and frigid. You buttoned your gray jacket, but it wasn’t enough. You didn’t dare to return to your hive to get something warmer, even though the night would only get colder as it wore on. The last time you had disobeyed Spidermom, she kicked you in the chest and refused to feed you for two nights. You shivered and tried to increase your pace to stave off the bite of the wind, but it didn’t work very well. You hate this memory.

You hadn’t been in the city much before. Spidermom had taken you in once and you’d watched as the lowbloods had run out of your path. You had heard their thoughts, felt their fear. _Watch them flee, Vriska. This is the nature of lower beings, of prey._ This time, no one turned their thoughts to the small girl walking down the street with her head lowered and her arms crossed. You felt this position was unbecoming for a descendent of the Marquise, so you stood up straight and set a hard look on your face.

There were some wigglers playing in the road, newly pupated by the look of them. It wouldn’t be hard to just carry one off. You hesitantly approached the group, steeled your will, and grabbed one.

A woolbeast instantly charged you with its horns down, knocking the wind out of you and causing you to let go of the wiggler. The woolbeast stood protectively over the tiny, crying troll, watching you with angry eyes. The message was obvious: _get away from my wiggler_. You limped away rather than avoid another confrontation. As you left, you noticed the lusus nuzzling the tiny troll. Whenever you’d cried, Spidermom just hissed and told you to quiet down. Jealousy and sadness warred in your heart.

You wandered the streets, watching for some unprotected wiggler, but only trolls at least a sweep older than yourself went anywhere without their lusi, and there was no way you could drag a troll that large back to the hive even if you could defeat them. You pass the public alchemiters, where the low-blooded trolls lined up with their money to make whatever supplies they needed. Around it was a small market where trolls sold off their used items for lower prices than the alchemiter would demand. At home you had access to an alchemiter that you only had to share with your neighbor Equius. Too bad that troll meat wasn’t something it could make.

Soon it would be dawn, and with it would come the searing sunlight. You had to find shelter. You had no idea which hives were cleared from cullings and so you wandered aimlessly as the sky turned from black to dark blue with the light creeping onto the horizon. Soon, the light would grow strong enough to blind you.

Suddenly, you realized a solution: there were rubbish repositories all over the city. It was humiliating. It was intolerable. It was smelly. It was all you had. Almost crying at the demeaning action, you climbed into the rubbish receptacle and pulled the lid down over you. Maybe you were never Mindfang’s descendent. Mindfang had never hidden in trash. Even when she was faced with execution, she had been strong and calm. If she were in your position, she would have used her mind powers to make someone give her their hive. You didn’t even know if you had that kind of power. You wept silently as you fell to sleep.

You awoke to the sound of voices above you.

“I bet she was set to be culled and she ran.”

“Her lusus is probably dead if I had to guess. I don’t see any deformities.”

“I bet we’ll get a reward if we turn her over to the drones.”

“Maybe I could get a new husktop. The one I have now is so slow.”

There were four of them, about six or seven seeps old, three boys and a girl. The boy with the olive green symbol on his shirt saw your open eyes.

“She’s awake! She has a weird eye. Is that why you were going to be culled, girl? Bad eye?”

You were enraged. “My eye is fine, and I’m not set to be culled.”

“Oh, no, of course not. You just find rubbish receptacles to be the most comfortable places to sleep. My mistake.”

“My lusus won’t let me back home…” You decided it would be a bad idea to tell them that you were supposed to bring back a troll to be eaten. You could feel their skepticism. The girl was holding back a laugh. The olive blood continued to speak.

“Riiight. Well, tell you what. We were thinking of just turning you in to the drones for reward money, but maybe you could work this out some other way. If you agree to do everything we tell you to, I’ll let you sleep on my floor and feed you whatever food’s left over from our meals. What do you say?” _It’ll be easier to make her come with us if she doesn’t know we’re bringing her to the drones. It’d be a pain if she tried to run or started screaming while we carried her._

His comrades didn’t seem to be privy to his silent planning:

_She’s so scrawny, what could she possibly do for us?_

_Might not be so bad to have her around, but I really wanted a new husktop, mine’s a piece of shit._

_I think it’s the wrong decision, but hey, he’s the boss, and we can always turn her in later._

Rage boiled in your veins. “I am no one’s slave, and I am certainly no one’s bounty. I am Vriska Serket, descendent of Marquise Spinneret Mindfang and you should KNEEL before me.”

On the word kneel, you felt the command rush out of you and snag on the minds of the four in front of you. They immediately dropped to the ground and bowed their heads to you. Their minds filled with terror at the sudden loss of control and you still held sway over their actions. This, at least, was a moment of triumph, the first time you used your full mind powers. What was yet to come was… less pleasant.

“You three. Leave. Now.”

Their olive blooded leader stayed while the other three ran off with a faintly sensed last thought trailing after them: _Please don’t hurt him. Oh God, what have we done?_

“You. Follow me.” His fear was so powerful it was making you feel nauseous. He was trembling and babbling as he involuntarily began the walk to your hive.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t—Please, let me go, I’ll never bother you again, I—Where are we going? Who are you? What are you going to—? My lusus will find out, he’s a huge slitherbeast, he’d swallow you in one bite!” You could see in his mind that his lusus is actually only a one foot long slitherbeast which he lovingly called ‘Bitey.’

“The drones won’t like this, I’m a mid-blood. It’s illegal for green bloods and rust bloods to hurt anyone with green blood.”

“I’m a cerulean blood.”

“Oh! I didn’t know! I never would have treated you like that if I’d known you were a blue blood! I promise I’ll never make the same mistake, I’ll do whatever you want me to, just please, let me go!”

You began to get a headache from all his high pitched whining. “Be quiet!”  
He couldn’t open his mouth anymore but he started crying like a pathetic wiggler, and you could still hear his thoughts.

_I didn’t mean it! I just want to live! I’m too young to die. What will Bitey think when I don’t come home? What about my friends? They abandoned me! Maybe they didn’t have a choice? She made them run! But they could have run back, they could have tried. Not even Sorren came back. I thought we were going to be matesprits. I trusted him._

_Maybe the blue blood girl isn’t going to kill me? She could have killed me when she made us all kneel, she could have made me take out my knife and kill myself. Maybe she’s going to make me her slave. She’s a high blood and I insulted her, so she could do that, and I would have to obey her because of her mind control. I was just panicking when I thought she was going to kill me. Maybe I can escape when she’s asleep._

Your eyes stung a bit. It wasn’t fair that he was making you feel bad. He had wanted to hurt you! He deserved to be eaten, probably a lot more than those wigglers Spidermom caught in the caverns. He definitely deserved to die a lot more than you, and you would be killed if you didn’t feed your lusus. You felt angry that killing him, of all people, made you feel bad.

“Apologize!” you commanded him.

“I’m so sorry I even thought about hurting you—“

“No, apologize for making me feel guilty!”

He got confused, but he tried anyways. “I’m sorry I made you feel guilty, you shouldn’t feel guilty for making me your slave—“

“I’m not going to make you my slave!”

“Then why are you making me walk? Where are you taking me?”  
Your voice dropped almost to a whisper as you choked out, “my lusus is hungry. I have to feed her.”

The olive blooded troll was momentarily stunned, his thoughts and emotions perfectly blank. Then, without warning, he broke free of your control and lunged at you, his head full of rage and fear. You regained your control just before he reached his knife. He still fought, but you’d gotten a better grip over his brain.

“You fucking bitch! I’ll kill you! I should have killed you in your sleep when I first saw you!” His words held rage but his mind was a mess of panic, horror, and fear. You noticed that he’d wet himself. He was trembling and he started sobbing uncontrollably. “Please. I don’t want to die.”

“Neither do I,” you replied.

The troll stopped fighting your control as despair seeped through his body. He wept silently for the remainder of your trek. You took him directly to Spidermom’s block.

“Vriska! I was beginning to think you’d run off, what took you so long? Bring me my meal.”

You forced the troll to walk forwards as he did his best to stop each step, moaning “No no no no no no no, please, oh god…” Then Spidermom split him open with her front leg and he let out a scream, more animal than troll, as Spidermom began lapping up his olive colored blood. The scream pierced your mind with its extreme pain. Bright light seared your eyes, like looking into the sun. You vomited from the sensation as you tried to block it out, to distance yourself from the agonized spasms of this dying troll. This wasn’t the first time you’d seen her feed, but it was the worst time thus far. Normally, it would be quick. She’d bite the head off with a quick strike from her fangs. She was doing this on purpose. She wanted you to feel him die slowly. His screams died out in a bloody gurgle and his eyes emptied, leaving a hole in you where you’d felt his mind, a hole that was mercifully dark and numb.

“Go wash the floor, then clean yourself. You smell of garbage and puke.”  
You numbly brought in a cleansing brush and water pan. Your hands shook as you cleaned the puke and green blood off the floor. Once finished, you wandered slowly up to your ablution block, took off your grimy clothing, and turned on the water. You were exhausted, and you just sat in the ablution trap letting the water flow over you. The troll was gone, and you were still alive. You’d made your first kill. You gave a hollow laugh of relief. You’d made it.

The world goes black and you snap out of your memory. What the hell was that! This is supposed to be your bubble, under your control. That was the last thing you’d ever want to re-experience. You were so god damn WEAK back then. It makes your skin crawl just thinking about it. What’s going on? Before you can even think about it too long you are swept up into another memory.

Aw fuck. You remember this. It’s only a bit more than half a sweep after the last memory. You’re still tiny, but you skipped over the nice parts of the intervening time. You’d gotten better control of your powers, so you could stop your victims from realizing what was happening to them, and you could shut out the screaming from their minds when they died. You’d been killing trolls from the various city gangs that stole from younger, weaker trolls and this kill pattern had attracted your first friend, Terezi, a girl who liked the way that crime rates were dropping thanks to your actions. You’d quickly linked her with the Neophyte Redglare described in your ancestor’s journals, but she’d doubted the connection. She’d in turn introduced you to her friends and some of you would do Flarping together, an activity that was simultaneously fun and productive, since trolls died in Flarp games every now and then and you could feed them to your lusus. For the first time in your life, you felt… happy? That wasn’t quite right; you’d felt _happy_ before—the relief after a completed kill, the satisfaction at winning a computer game—but it still felt good to have friends. It made you feel like the future might be something to look forward to.

But other things had shifted in your life. Namely, Spidermom had grown huge and her appetite had grown proportionally. Meanwhile, the number of trolls that Terezi deemed to be “bad guys” was dwindling, and those that remained were careful to avoid the blue blooded girl with the strange eye. Spidermom hadn’t received a fresh troll from you in five nights and as punishment, you had been denied food for the past three. You felt light headed and your stomach ached with emptiness. You’d considered asking your friends for help, but your pride wouldn’t permit it. You wouldn’t let them see how weak you were, not when they had just begun to respect you. To be weak was to be prey.

“Vriska! Get down here!”

“I’ll be down in a moment!”

You were terrified that she’d lose her temper and just eat you this time, but it didn’t do any good to show fear around Spidermom. She’d accuse you of being weak and just get angrier. You ran down the stairs and opened the door to Spidermom’s cave, but you didn’t enter. Maybe you’d have a chance to run if she tried to kill you.

“What is it?” You were pretty sure you already knew what this was about, the lack of young trolls for her to eat, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

“Vriska. Can you tell me why I have not been fed for the past five nights?”

“I’m doing the best I can. I haven’t been able to find anyone lately. It’s not like going without food is fun for me either.”

“You ‘haven’t been able to find anyone’? Has Alternia suddenly run out of trolls?”

“I’ve only been killing the ones who deserved to die, so—“

“ _Deserved_ to die? My poor, stupid child, are you telling me that you’ve been allowing some notion of _justice_ in your hunting? Life belongs only to those strong enough to _survive_ it. That is the only rule that governs life and death, it is the natural order. Why do you think the culling drones kill off the infirm? Why do you think young trolls go through the trials of the brooding caverns? The world has no place for the weak.”

You had no counterargument. What could you say? That the trolls you had taken off the streets had harmed others, so they deserved death? You had heard their thoughts. Most of them were just struggling to live through to adulthood, same as you. The vast majority of them hadn’t even killed anyone, just beaten those weaker than themselves and stolen things. You certainly had a higher body count than any of them. You’d started with hunting the rest of the gang that had tried to give you to the culling drones, then you’d continued because other gangs tried to kill you, and then you’d kept going after that because it made Terezi so happy. The justice thing was mainly for her and your friends. You liked having friends, and the excuse that you were legally allowed to kill anyone significantly lower down on the hemospectrum probably wouldn’t cut it with them, considering that most of them were in that lower-blood category.

“The weak members of a species drag down the strong in their doom unless killed. Vriska, tell me: during your trials, did you see any young trolls try to help along those too weak to make it themselves? What happened to those trolls?”

“They died beside the trolls they tried to help.”

“To pity the weak is to become weak. I will not tolerate raising a lazy, weak troll. Bring me food tonight, or don’t come back at all.”

You wanted to kill her. You wanted to stick something sharp through her head and watch the sharp white light in her eyes fade to nothing. But you couldn’t. Because, in the end, you just weren’t strong enough. Your only power came in manipulating the minds of other trolls. You couldn’t touch her mind, and no mind you could control would be strong enough to defeat her.

You hated yourself for your weakness.

You left your hive and began to walk to the city once again. You didn’t want to kill some random troll, but you didn’t want to die either. Maybe Terezi was having some influence on you, but it really didn’t feel right to kill some troll who didn’t want to hurt anyone. Maybe that made you as weak as Spidermom said you were, but there it was. You wished you had a lusus who ate plants. You wished… it’s stupid to wish for impossible things. Wishing was for lame losers. You stopped moping and pulled yourself together. You considered your options.

You saw four choices: get food for Spidermom, try to kill Spidermom, run away, or die. You didn’t want to die, and you didn’t have the power needed to kill Spidermom, so that left two choices: flee or kill someone. You couldn’t hunt like that cat girl Equius had for a moirail, so you would need someone to help you if you wanted to run, to hide you and feed you. You would be throwing yourself at the mercy of another troll, putting your life entirely in their hands. The thought of it made your stomach knot up in fear and shame. You wouldn’t be able to use your powers for this; such long term control would be too unpredictable. You would be helpless. Yet, for some reason, it didn’t feel as bad as the idea of killing an innocent troll.

You couldn’t ask any lowbloods. They had limited food rations, so they would have to turn you away even if they actually wanted to help you. That probably included Karkat, because why else would he hide his blood color? You wished you could go to Kanaya, she’d probably love the opportunity to fuss and meddle and make you clothes and stuff, but she lived several nights journey away, in the middle of a desert. You would be caught long before you could make it to her hive.

Eridan hated you and he was the sort of asshole who would probably love to see you brought so low that you would beg at his door, just to be able to turn you away and call the culling drones. His moirail loved taking in stray animals and she would probably take you in if her hive weren’t at the bottom of the fucking ocean. Equius would probably give some rant about how letting a fugitive troll live in his hive would be ‘impropriety of the highest caliber’. Then he would shut the door in your face as he ran off to get another towel. And if you even thought about staying with his moirail he’d probably order her to turn you down too, on the grounds that you would be a ‘bad inf100ence’ on her. Gamzee? ... He kind of freaked you out. I mean, he seemed harmless enough on the outside, but when you tried to touch his mind it was like trying to hold oil, if oil were made of blood and shards of broken glass, gleaming in a rainbow with every color in the hemospectrum and as it slid through your fingers it made a sound like laughter echoing in an empty space. You’d had nightmares about it for two nights afterwards.

That left Terezi. She was your first friend, your scourge sister. She would help you …right? After all, you would be avoiding killing mostly for her. I mean, she’d just have to make one _liiiiiiiittle_ exception to her commitment to the law. One _tiny_ exception which could get her killed, for a girl who she’d known less than a sweep, a girl who wasn’t her moirail or her matesprit. You wanted to believe she would do that for you, but you could you rely on it? Could you trust her with your life? You felt so small, so powerless. Tears sprang to your eyes. You didn’t even have the power to stop them. You hated feeling so vulnerable. It was all wrong. You were supposed to be like your ancestor, who faced the Honorable Tyranny of the high court with a smile on her face, even without her left arm and eye. You only had to face down some helpless troll kid. You were supposed to be able to do this. Killing was in your blood, it was your hatch right. You weren’t supposed to even feel bad about this. Why the hell did you feel bad about this?

You steeled your will and continued walking. Whichever random troll you found first, well, that’d just be their bad luck. You would do what you had to in order to survive, and you refused to feel bad about it. You hadn’t chosen this.

Before you’d even gotten to the edge of the city, you saw a girl with a rust-red symbol on her shirt that looked a little like a flower. Her hair was short and curly in a sort of frizzy way and she was _smiling_ at you. God fucking damn it, why would she do that? You were going to take her to her death. Because it was just her bad luck, being the first kid you found tonight. It wasn’t your fault that she’d decided to run up to the most dangerous troll she could have found tonight. You couldn’t spare her just because she’d smiled. It didn’t work that way.

“You’re that girl who was taking out all the bad kids, right? Oh my gosh, can I fight with you? I can make things invisible, and then we could sneak up on the bad guys and you could get them with your awesome fighting skills and then everyone could be safe from the gangs like the one that was taking stuff from everyone in my neighborhood, and it would be so awesome!”

This troll may have been a sweep younger than you, but you were _never_ this annoying. Ever. How does someone even _get_ that annoying? You just didn’t understand. She was so… _naïve_. It disgusted you. It made you envious. It was just another stupid impossible wish. You hadn’t had the luxury of being that naïve and that was just the way it was.

“Sure, you can hang with me. Hey, I have to go back to my hive, do you want to walk with me?”

She hesitated. “My lusus said I shouldn’t go into the blue blood neighborhood. She said I could get hurt if a highblood found me.”

“You’d be with me. No one would hurt you if they saw I was protecting you.”

“I guess that’s okay then! Wow, I’ve never been to the highblood neighborhood! Do you have a huge castle for a hive?”

You nodded and the girl flipped out. “Oh my god that’s so cool! I just live in a communal hive stem in the city! This is so awesome! Oh, by the way, my name’s Bellis, what’s your name?”

“…I’m Vriska.”

“Oh, wow, that is such a cool name! I bet you’re really cool too, I mean, of course you are, cause you took out like half the gangs in the city, and the other half are hiding like wigglers cause they’re so scared that you’ll find them! You know, my lusus didn’t really want me to try to find you, she said it would be too dangerous, so I snuck out and…”

You tuned her out and just kept walking and she followed with an unending string of things to say. She didn’t seem to need you to add anything to the conversation except the occasional nod. You were grateful. Eventually you made it to your hive.

“Oh, wow, is this your hive? It’s so huge! It really is a castle! You are sooo lucky! I wish I was a highblood! Then I’d never have to worry about anyone taking my food and I could live in a big castle with my lusus, and I would be so happy!”

She really didn’t know anything. “You know, if you were a highblood, you wouldn’t have the same lusus you have now. You’d have one of the highblood lusus types.”

“Oh, you’re right, I didn’t think about that! I wouldn’t want to give up my Chicky. She’s a big cluckbeast, by the way, I don’t know if I said so before. I love her, but she can be a bit overprotective sometimes. I don’t think I would mind having a highblood lusus though, I mean, whichever lusus picks you, you love them no matter what! And the highbloods get so many cool lusus types, so that wouldn’t be bad.”

You had approached the door to your lusus’s cave. “Okay, Belisa—"

“My name’s Bellis!”

“Okay, Bellis, I didn’t want to make you nervous before, but I have a test to see if you can be my sidekick. Behind that door is a monster I trapped, a huge spider that eats young trolls. If you reeeeeeeeally want to be my sidekick, you have to kill it.” Who knows? Maybe she’d succeed and you’d be free of your lusus forever. If not, then you’d fed your lusus.

Bellis went wide eyed. “Oh! I don’t know if I could do that, I mean I’ve never killed any giant spiders before! I haven’t killed anything before!”

“But you said you could turn invisible! I’m suuuuuuuure that with an aaaaaaaawesome power like that, killing a spider would be easy! I believe in you!”

Bellis drew a wimpy looking sword from her strife specibus and became invisible. The door opened and closed. There were a few moments of soft scuffling, then Spidermom gave her annoyed-shriek, then there was the loud thud of a body hitting the ground hard. Bellis screamed. “Vriska! Help me! The spider has me pinned down!”

You entered the room, but not to help. Bellis was pinned to the ground.

“Vriska, help me!”

You looked up at Spidermom. “Just kill her already. Stop drawing it out.”

You felt one final emotion from Bellis before she died beneath a huge spider leg: betrayal. She had no hatred, no anger, not even fear. She felt betrayed.  
The whole thing was so easy. She’d followed you willingly, no fight. You felt relieved. You’d done it, and it wasn’t even hard to do. A small part of you felt horrified by this knowledge, that it was so much easier to kill someone who was completely innocent than it was to kill someone who had hurt others. In that moment, you accepted what Spidermom had told you. The world didn’t care about morals, it only cared about power. And you were one of the most powerful trolls in Alternia, able to bend the wills of others.

You were barely surprised by how easy it was to lie about it to your friends afterwards. A sliver of your mind still hated you for it, but it was drowned out in the massive relief of knowing that you would never have to worry about feeding your lusus late. And it only got easier after that. It became mundane, and it was easy to push away the little voice that asked you what the difference was between the lowblood trolls you killed and the friends you cared about, because you had an answer. Your friends deserved to live over the ones you killed because they were _your_ friends, and the power to choose who lived and who died lay squarely in your hands. You were in control of your life and you loved that power.

The memory fades out and you collapse. No! You aren’t like that anymore! You mean, yeah, you are still strong enough to make the decisions everyone else is too weak to consider, but you do it for the greater good! You don’t just kill off strangers to save your own skin. You would only kill if it was saving a universe, or some other huge thing like that. You’re not a murderer, not anymore! You changed.

“Who’s doing this?” you yell. “Show yourself!” But no reply emerges from the darkness. Another memory swallows you up.


	2. Chapter 2

You are disoriented. You don’t remember this. Assuming this is your memory, shouldn’t you be able to, you know, remember it? It seems familiar, but you don’t know what’s supposed to come next. Why were you here? And why was it so dark? You heard animals…

 

Not just animals, lusi. You were small, so very tiny. Your thoughts barely even formed proper words, but an ancient instinct told you what to do. You’d passed your trials. Now, a lusus would claim you. You wandered around the caverns. A green blooded purrbeast found a green blooded wiggler. Some blue blooded kid was causing a fuss because he’d accidentally hurt a blue blooded lusus that had tried to examine him and it had run off. A musclebeast quietly picked up the squalling child and cantered off for the surface. A white tentacle slipped out of a dark pool, grabbed a seadweller girl, and disappeared under the surface.

 

A huge eight eyed hunter bird approached you. This bird shared your blood color, you could feel it. You followed your new lusus through the caves, but your legs were short and you fell behind. You came to a division, but you couldn’t figure out which way it had gone. You should have gone back to the brooding caverns. You could have waited for a new lusus. You thought you felt the presence of your lusus on the path to the right, so you ran ahead and your tiny body quickly became ensnared in a web. A spider, maybe three times your size, regarded you curiously with her eight eyes. You felt the connection of your blood. Another cerulean blooded lusus. She didn’t seem to know what to do with you. Her web held the mangled remains of some other young trolls. Would this spider protect you, or kill you?

 

For now, the spider compromised. She left you stuck in her web. Time passed without any reliable indication of how long you were hanging there. You had to pee after a little while, but she wouldn’t let you down, so your pee trickled down over the web. Your mouth dried to sandpaper and your lips cracked and bled. Your eyes stung with the dryness. Your stomach growled after a short while, then seemed to slowly shrivel up into a knot.

 

A spider leg poked you and you squirmed. Seemingly satisfied, she stuck a chunk of orange-brown meat under your nose. You ate it quickly, and she offered you more. You glanced beside you as you ate. She’d caught a fairy bull.  Apparently satisfied that you’d eaten enough, she cut you free of the web and stuck you on her back with more silk. Next, you headed for the surface.

 

The memory broke. You’d forgotten that there was a lusus before Spidermom. What would your life have been if you’d run a bit faster? You suppose you should just be grateful that Spidermom’s guardian instincts overpowered her unending search for food. Or maybe she saw you as an investment for future feedings. It was hard to say. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. You’d learned long ago that imagining what could have been lead to nothing but pain. A lot of your life sucked, and you’d made a lot of bad decisions. If your life hadn’t sucked, you would have been a lot happier and maybe you wouldn’t have made so many terrible mistakes and maybe you wouldn’t be here alone now. Knowing that things didn’t have to be so bad is painful, but in the end it was all just fate, the inescapable causality circles of the alpha timeline. You never had a hope of leading any life except the one you had.

 

“Okay, who’s controlling the show here? Stop being a fucking wiggler and show yourself!”

 

You spot a pair of red glasses in the darkness. Your blood pusher lurches. “Terezi? What the hell is going on?”

 

Terezi steps forwards, her expression cold. At the same time, a portion of the seemingly endless darkness is illuminated, revealing tiered benches of trolls and humans: a white eyed version of almost every player of Sgrub and Sburb. You also notice a podium, where Karkat is sitting, looking uncomfortable.

 

“Vriska Serket, you are on trial. You are accused of numerous murders. The fact that you did these murders is not what we are here to examine, as it is well known to all present that you’ve killed tons of people, but rather your motives for these many killings. In deference to human justice traditions, you will have a ‘defense lawyer.’ It’s sort of like a legislacerator who tries to prove that you _don’t_ deserve to get double death. You have two volunteers: Tavros—“

 

“What the actual fuck Terezi? Cut out this lame fakey trial, I am soooooooo not in the mood.”

 

“This trial is completely serious, Vriska. You have done awful things in your life. For all we know, you might be planning to pull another trick to help yourself which could put people in danger. Letting you go free threatens everything we all gave our lives for, because you would never be content to just spend an eternity of irrelevance in a dream bubble. Since we can’t judge you for what you might do, we will judge you on what you’ve done. If your actions and reasoning show that you had good cause to do what you did and you won’t kill anyone else, you can continue in your exile. If not, we will execute you.”

 

“I’m a ghost, Terezi. How do you expect to kill a ghost? Only Lord English could kill ghosts, and he ain’t exactly around anymore.”

 

“We located his gun.”

 

That gives you pause. “Come on, it’s not like I’m the only troll who killed someone. And besides, I already said I was sorry about it. I’ve _changed_. I know I was wrong, and I won’t do it again.  Of course, I know you wouldn’t believe me. You never believed I would try to do the right thing.”

 

“Yeah, because you kept doing terrible things! Now like I was saying, two people volunteered to help argue that you deserved to live: Tavros and John. The evidence in this case will be your memories, plus the testimony of anyone who wants to speak. I can make it so that we can all see what you saw because of my seer of mind powers. Aranea will stop you from trying to influence the jury with your powers, so no funny business. Karkat volunteered to auspicticize in any disagreements between my legislaceration and the defense after he found out that he’d have to sit on the jury with Kankri mediating disputes. There is one copy of every player except for you, Damara, and the Makaras on the jury. Your defense and I have agreed on all these appointments. Anyone on the prosecution, defense, or jury can request a memory. If you don’t like it, you can ask Karkat to stop the request. Any questions?”

 

“What was up with all those memories that I just got shoved into?”

 

“We didn’t have Aranea to keep you under control yet, so we needed to keep the jury hidden from your powers. I wanted to start with your anonymous kills, so I began with your first kill, then your first kill of someone innocent. Then John said that the jury needed to see how bad Spidermom really was, so we saw your first memory of her. Now that we have that settled, you can speak to your defense.”

 

John bounds over to you and gives you a hug. It’s sappy and awkward as fuck, but you kind of like it. You didn’t like being alone. Not that you’d ever admit that. Tavros comes over and waves shyly. Time to get some...stuff... cleared up.

 

“Why did you want to defend me?”

 

John frowned. “Well, a lot of people made some big mistakes in the game! I don’t think that anyone should get punished for making mistakes, especially when they’re already sorry.”

 

“I, um, agree with John. And also, I kind of think that you had it harder than the rest of us in a lot of ways? Because you had to feed your lusus and everything, and I think that, um, you didn’t really know how to be nice because of that.”

 

“Shut up, Tarvos.”

 

There is a moment of silence, then John speaks. “So Vriska, are there any memories that you want to share? Anything that can help defend you?”

 

“I don’t want to share _any_ of my memories. They’re private. I shouldn’t have to defend myself.”

Tavros nervously looks up at you. “I, uh, think that maybe you have to anyways? I don’t think they’re going to listen otherwise.”

 

“Okay then, I just... I have to think.”

 

Terezi shouts through the chatter. “I have a new memory request! I want to see the last kill Vriska made before entering the game.”

 

Karkat sighs from up on his little podium. “Okay, that makes sense.”

 

“No, I don’t want you rooting around through my brain! It isn’t like any of you have to put up with this shit!”

 

Karkat gives you a look. “Overruled. Terezi, go ahead.”

 

The bubble goes dark, and then you are standing in your hive. Stupid lame trial. This was two nights before you entered the game. You left your respite block and headed towards the city as usual. You saw no trolls on your journey. They had learned to fear you. You entered the city. Occasionally you would catch sight of some troll scampering off in the distance. They were all weak losers who wouldn’t even face you in person.

 

You wait for someone to attack you. It was hard, trying to kill with a sort of justice when your lusus was hungry. It was hard, and nobody understood. But Terezi had been so _angry_ when she found out that you were killing innocent people, so now you just stood around and waited to be attacked. You’d killed enough people at this point that there were lots of trolls seeking vengeance. Terezi couldn’t blame you if you were just _defending_ yourself, right?

 

A troll riding a three headed swine lusus charged at you, a blast of psychic power almost catching your robotic arm. You rolled your dice. The lusus’s three heads exploded. You took the distraction as an opportunity to clamp down on the mind of the fudgeblood on its back. Just as you did so, you spotted another troll charging for you. You forced the first troll to blast him with her powers. He fell back unconscious.

 

You smirked at the troll at your feet. “Sorry, I already have a troll for lusus food. Maybe you’ll get to be spider food tomorrow.”

 

With that out of the way, you gave the brownblood an order: _don’t think, just walk behind me._ Not so bad this time! Sometimes you’d have to wait for hours, or feign an injury before some idiot would attack.

 

You thought about the game you were about to play. You were _tooooooootally_ going to be forgiven once you gave Aradia the robo body that you’d asked Equius to make. You would give it to her, and she’d be like _oh Vriska, this new body is the best!_ Then she would let everyone know how great you were, and then everything would be better. They’d realize that you were really _reeeeeeeeally_ sorry and even Terezi would stop avoiding you! Your plan was tooooooootally going to work perfectly, and you’d have friends again.

 

You missed the easy days before you’d crippled Tavridork, back when you could just Flarp and feed your lusus secretly and everyone liked you—well, everyone who _mattered_ anyways. You wish you could redo it all, but thinking things are gonna get better just cause you want them to is for lame idiots. But you have your plan, and then you won’t be alone anymore!

 

You didn’t realize how much you liked your friends until they all hated you. You messaged them still even though they all told you to leave them alone most of the time. But now, with the game about to start, they’d have to talk to you, even Terezi! You would help them to be the best players and you’d win the game for them, and then they’d see how much they needed you. Terezi would realize how wrong she was about you and she would apologize, and then you could refuse _her_ apology. Then she would see how hard it was. Of course you would accept her apology after a little while, and then you would be friends again.

 

You arrived back at your hive. You ordered the troll to walk into Spidermom’s block and climbed up the stairs to your respiteblock. You still didn’t understand why they wouldn’t just let it go! You already said you were sorry for paralyzing Tavros and killing Aradia and blinding Terezi. And it wasn’t like they were so innocent either! Tavros tried to break the rules of the Flarp game. Aradia had attacked you with an army of ghosts. Terezi had destroyed one of your arms and seven of your eyes. You were just retaliating. You should be even now. They hadn’t even apologized for any of the stuff they did, and you had, and it wasn’t _fair_. You just wanted your friends back...

 

You are in the center of the trial again. You stare at your hands. “All of you can hear the thoughts in those memories, right?”

 

“Yes, we all saw how you didn’t even care enough about killing to spare a thought for your victim,” Terezi replied

_I’m sorry. For all of it. I’m sorry that I killed so many that I stopped even caring. I’m sorry that I hurt you and Aradia and Tavros. I’m sorry that I screwed up time and time again until no one trusted me. I’m sorry that it took me so long to figure out which impulses were good and which ones were bad, and I’m sorry for refusing to listen to anyone and for not trusting anyone and I’m sorry for being an idiot who never understood anything until I suddenly_ did _and it hurt so much._.. You want to say that but the words catch on your throat and you stay silent. You don’t want to exist anymore. It’s okay. They can just shoot you now, just... no more memories.

 

“Yeah. I murdered people, and I didn’t care. Guilty as charged. Are we done with this trial yet? Will you just shoot me already, Pyrope? That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

 

John cuts in. “Vriska! Don’t say that! Look, I know it’s painful to go back through your memories but you can’t just give up. We can get through this, you’ll see! We just have to find some stuff to help you, to show that you’re not so bad.”

 

Terezi pipes up. “I have another memory to request! I suggest that we look at Vriska killing Tavros.”

 

John speaks up immediately at that. “If you’re showing that, then you also have to show afterwards, when she talked with me on pesterchum!”

You are outraged. “ The fuck John! That was a private conversation! You can’t just show that!”

 

 Karkat sighs. “Humans, the whole ‘defense lawyer’ thing is from your planet. Am I supposed to let her stop evidence that might help her, or do I listen to her defense lawyers?”

 

“You listen to us!” says John. You give him a look. There is no way that he is telling the truth.

 

“You’re lying! What kind of rule would that be, I should totally get to stop you from doing stuff I don’t want! Aren’t you two supposed to be helping me?”

 

Rose speaks up. “I believe John is right. The idea is that all evidence should be shown, in case the defendant is covering for someone else or not in their right mind.”

 

“Fuck the human justice system! On Alternia, once someone confessed it was over. Here I am, confessing: I have been a shitty person. I ain’t gonna deny that.”

 

Terezi grins at you with her most predatory smile. “Now I wonder what you’re hiding. I want this memory shown.”

 

“Go ahead, Terezi,” said Karkat.

_Fuck aaaaaaaallllllll of you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been kind of a while since I posted the first chapter. Writing is hard. I still plan to finish this, but it could be a while.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I have posted a fan fiction. Constructive criticism is much appreciated.  
> Also, I can assure you that yes, this is going somewhere, there is a good reason for the dream bubble malfunctions.


End file.
